Armed And Dangerous (The McKinnon Legends - The McKinnon American Men Book 2) (3 page)

This voice, he reasoned, usually softened the most frozen of females who were attempting to play hard to get. He speculated even the Ice Queen had to have some thawing point. He, personally, had just never found it.

She looked doubtfully at him noticing his eyes were a deep shade of Caribbean blue reflected from the dark turquoise t-shirt he was wearing.

It was typical Mason, she thought, looking at the tee stretched across the tight muscles on his chest and sporting the slogan:
Ride hard and leave them wet
. It was a jet ski advertisement. However, she had no doubt hard and wet was exactly how Mason lived his life.

“And you are a sorry liar, Mason. You do not have an appointment, and I cannot believe you and Robert came from the same gene pool,” she commented while eyeing his feet.

Chase McKinnon she would definitely believe was Mason’s fellow litter mate, but Robert, no. It was hard to believe the two were even related. Robert was the epitome of refinement and manners. Mason was just Mason.

“I know for a fact you were not raised in a barn, Mason. So, get your feet off the furniture,” she shamed him.

He knew she was correct. It was disrespectful to put feet on another person’s property. His mom use to say to them, “
Always treat a lady as a lady should be treated, don’t wear a hat indoors, and never, ever put your feet up on the furniture. I’m not raising barnyard animals in my house.
”

However, through the years Barbara had, on more than one occasion, accused him of being a pig or a hound and always full of bull. In some ways she was right, he thought, not ever bothering to deny it.

However, to Barbara’s point, Betty McKinnon had drilled proper conduct into Robert, Chase, and him as kids. His sister, Eve, had never been a problem, always the epitome of manners and feminine behavior. Not so with Barbara. There was not a damn thing feminine about her, he thought.

Still, she hit a nerve.

“Happy now?” he shot back as he complied with her request to remove his feet.

“Am I happy?” Barbara asked looking pensively off in the distance. Even if he had asked not really wishing an answer, strangely enough, it was a question she had been asking herself lately.

He left her alone with her thoughts for a moment briefly wondering what was going on behind those eyes. He noticed the moment she came back to herself. If her look had not given her away, he reasoned, her comments surely did the trick.

“I did not know you cared about my feelings, Mason, but as you have asked so nicely, I would be most happy if you left.”

“Not a chance, Barbie Doll,” he popped back.

She sighed, exasperated with him. She needed to get him out. “If you had an appointment with Robert, I would know,” she said while gathering up her keys, hoping he would get the hint as she began to lock up the office.

“He does not have to tell you everything, Barbara. Have you considered that possibility?”

It was a rhetorical question on his part. She thought not.

“It’s always in Robert’s best interest to tell me who he is expecting. So not only would I have known about your little visit here today, but I would have...”

“Would have what, Barbara?” He interrupted her. “Made sure there were plenty no trespassing signs posted prior to my arrival?”

“Hum, wish I had thought of that,” she sparred gently with him, actually smiling.

She was not as bent out of shape with him at this point as she usually would have been. Perhaps, she was mellowing out in her old age?

Why he was on the defensive with her today was his question. He really had no reason. She was being much more agreeable than usual.

“Why do you wish you had thought of that, Barbara? So you could have had building security throw me out on my arrogant ass the moment I darkened the threshold?” he gently sparred with her continuing to poke the proverbial bear. It was all in good fun.

“Yeah, something like that.” She still was on even footing. She marveled. Maybe the advice of her doctor to give up caffeine was working. Under normal circumstances, by this point, she would already be resisting the urge to toss him out, not because she needed to, as was the case today, but because it would have been an uncontrollable desire to see the back of his head going down the hallway.

“I belong here, Barbara. I have way more right to be here than you.”

Why he continued to spar with her was always a mystery to him. It was as if some evil force would not let him ignore her. Today, she was actually not nearly as much fun. She was not taking the bait and was not a harpy, leaving him with little ammunition and absolutely no cause to continue to barb her.

“You need to leave now,” Barbara said, closing the file drawer for emphasis. He had just hit an open nerve with her. She did have a right to be here. “And one of these days you will have to accept I’m not going anywhere, but you are.” She really needed to get him out and soon. She was running out of time in more ways than just one.

“No, I’m not going anywhere. I have an appointment, and as much as you may annoy me, I’ll wait.” He picked up a magazine and began to read.

“Must you, Mason?” Barbara said with a dramatic sigh and then looked at the reading material in his hands. “
Forbes
?” she asked genuinely surprised at his selection. “I would have taken you for a
Shark Diver
or
Guns and Ammo
kind of guy.”

It was the first genuine thing to come out of her mouth, and somehow it stung that she could think he was nothing more than muscle. Few knew he had a double masters degree in mechanical engineering and physics both acquired before the age of twenty-two. Of course, he hadn’t done squat with either of those two degrees, but that was beside the point. He had brains where and when it counted. He chose to expend that brainpower when and where it was necessary. Anything else was simply, in his mind, a waste of a good time.

“
Playboy
and
Marvel Comics
really are more my speed,” he quipped, covering the unfamiliar feeling of caring what a woman, especially this woman, thought of him on some deeper level. “I’m just trying to impress you with my brains as my brawn has seemed to have fallen short over the years.” He grinned playfully at her.

Rolling her eyes Barbara was not sure how to take that comment.

“All right, Mason, enough of the banter.” She had to try one more time. “It is time for you to leave. You are in my way, and let’s not mention taking up valuable airspace. I have work to do and you are chipping away at my lunch hour. Once Robert gets back it will be nose to the grindstone again.” She took his hand and tried to pull him up off the chair to no avail. He jerked his arm back forcing her to end up in his lap.

He laughed triumphantly at her expression of shock and surprise. “Now, little girl, tell Santa what you want for Christmas.” The look he gave her was smoldering.

He had not been this close to Barbara since..., well never, actually come to think of it. Her perfume wafted over him. She may not look like much, he thought, but she sure smelled good.

“Oh, go to hell.” She scrambled out of his reach.

He laughed, earning him a look he fully recognized. Now, he thought, this was the Barbara with whom he loved to battle

She needed to get him out. At any minute, Robert was expecting Liam Williamson and John Hurling, two of their top operatives. She was not sure Robert wanted Mason to know about their next mission. This one was going to be very personal for McKinnon-Bride Personal Security. This involved family.

Robert was very private about their business dealings, sharing with his baby brother only on a need-to-know basis. This was not one of those need-to-know times, at least not as far as she could see.

“Mason, you need to get out before I call building security.” She was serious. “If Robert gets back and I’m not already gone, then I will not make my own appointment.”

“Then go. No one is stopping you, least of all me.” He did not look at her as he looked absently at the magazine. It was an off-handed insult designed to dig at her.

“I will not leave you here alone. You would probably end up with five hookers and a keg in here before it was all said and done and convince Robert it was all my idea.”

He could see she was serious. He put the magazine down. Cocking his head, he slowly stood up. His 6’5” frame was imposing as he towered over her. She was not one bit impressed. She had been around enough McKinnon men to know for all his blustering he would not lay a finger on a single hair of her head no matter how much she bent him backward. However, if he did manage to lose his mind and touch her, it did not matter. She could take care of herself. She always had, and his tactics just hacked her off, plain and simple.

“Back off, Mason,” she asked nicely, giving him one warning shot over the proverbial bow.

“You know something, Barbara, if you worked for me and not my brother, I would fire your smart mouth before you could say ‘unemployment line’. And if you hate working for Robert so much, why don’t you save him the trouble of firing you and quit?”

He was so close she could smell the leather of his black riding jacket mixed with the very subtle scent of his cologne. She loved the smell of leather. She loved the smell of him, too. It was pure sex and male. Involuntarily, she inhaled deeper, slowly letting the breath out. It was soothing which totally surprised her.

He was trying to use intrusion into her personal space to back her down. It was just
so
not working. She took a step closer forcing him to take a step back or their bodies would actually touch.

“But I don’t work for you, now do I?” She should have left it at that.

However, she also discovered just a little late that she should have already eaten, too. She was feeling her blood sugar drop to dangerous levels making her way more edgy and aggressive than any extra large, quad shot, extra hot, red-eye espresso ever could make her feel. “The fact that I don’t answer to you is one blessing I count each day I live and breathe. That being the case, I couldn’t care any less tomorrow than I do this minute about what you think or what you would or would not do. Besides, why would I quit and give you the satisfaction of having the last word? I like what I do, and I like Robert. It’s you I don’t particularly like.”

She smiled sweetly, completely pissing him off in the process. There was a snake behind that smile. He wasn’t buying.

“You know I just figured something out about you, Babs,” Mason said her name with sarcastic emphasis. “You are so much more attractive when you don’t talk.”

“Ahh, yes,” she paused for emphasis reaching for a power bar from her desk drawer. She had to eat. Perhaps it was not too late to salvage this encounter with Mason. She really did not wish to fight with him any longer. Life was too short. That was something else her doctor had told her. “The old axiom of ‘
There is truly merit in the ideology of a woman being seen and not heard.
’”

“God, yes! However, in your case, you’re not even worth looking at even if you did manage to keep that yap of yours closed.” He felt bad the minute the words were out of his mouth. It was disrespectful. And no woman enjoyed hearing she was unattractive. “I should not have said that. Not even to you.” He felt he had just made a bad situation even worse.

She was very quick to cover the gasp. In all the years they had gone at each other, he had never been outright mean to her. Not like this. She felt the sting of his insult. She controlled her urge only because she was a true professional.

“Point, shoot, aim. It is how you have always been, Mason. I would have expected nothing less.”

She knew his type: only out for a good time, love-em and leave-em. He loved women and she could not fault him there, and as a rule the big jerk usually treated women very well when he was with them, at least the women he dated. He just never treated her well, but she typically never gave him the opportunity, either. Usually, one or the other started off on the wrong foot and the dance usually ended badly. Case in point - their current encounter.

Although on the outside he was crass, pigheaded, insensitive, and stubborn, her theory was there had to be more to him than what was viewable on the surface. She had, over the years, glimpsed genius in him. Yet, she and Robert both despaired that he probably would never learn. Robert had voiced on numerous occasions that eventually his baby brother’s little world would come crashing down when he woke up one day old, gray, and with some other young buck tossing him out of his territory.

She took a different approach.

She felt it would be worse yet, if he woke up one day and realized he had finally grown up only to be saddled with a dumb bimbo who did not have a single brain cell between her ears. Mason wasn’t dumb. Oh no, not by any stretch. He just did dumb stuff. Taking risks of which the normal person would never dream.

In reality, she really did not care. He was a big boy and could make his own decisions, no matter how juvenile, as long as he got the job done for McKinnon-Bride, which he always did.

She felt the need to even the score. Mason prided himself on being irresistible to women. Well, she thought, this was one woman who he would never find wrapped around his finger.

She was shaking, but not from anger. She really wasn’t angry with him, not today. She was hungry, something she should never let happen. It made her nearly an impossible grouch.

“Well, Mason, while we are on the subject of ideologies and theories, I came up with one of my own. Want to hear it?”

“Oh sure, like I could stop you. Please, share this brilliant theory, Einstein.” He rolled his eyes.

“Ok, it goes something like this: The only time you’re attractive to me and I’m truly happy is when you are on the other side of the world. And you know what? That should not be a stretch for you because you usually are halfway around the world. Let’s test it out, shall we?”

“Or how about this? I’ll just move my office in here just to annoy you. How about that idea, Barbie Doll?”

“Feel free, but only if you have the urge to be tossed out a forty-five-story building. I hear the view on the way down is great, but trust me the sudden stop is a killer.”